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The UK Government has to-date not committed any funding for design or development work on the A75, as, along with all other transport recommendations identified by the second Strategic Transport Projects Review, it remains a devolved matter.

Along with the other large household surveys that rely on face-to-face interviews, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) was suspended in March 2020 to restrict social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, no SCJS interviews were conducted during 2020-21 and no report will be published for that year. In recognition of the evidence gap opened up by the suspension, the Scottish Government introduced the Scottish Victimisation Telephone Survey as a discrete and additional collection to the SCJS. This asked people about their experiences and perceptions of crime, safety and policing during the COVID-19 pandemic, with findings available at: Coronavirus (COVID-19): Scottish Victimisation Telephone Survey 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Fieldwork for the SCJS resumed in late 2021, with a full year’s worth of interviews due to be complete by December and findings published in mid-2023.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office operates open competitive funding schemes for applied health research projects and fellowships across the wide range of NHS and health challenges in Scotland.

These schemes continue to operate and are open to consideration of applications addressing priorities for research conditions that effect menstrual health. Applications to these schemes are assessed through independent expert peer-review with funding recommendations made by independent expert committees.

A number of research projects on menstrual health including fibroids and endometriosis, have been funded through these schemes in the past.

In partnership with Wellbeing of Women, this year we are jointly funding a £250,000 research call which aims to develop improvements into treatment and management options for endometriosis. The funding will be awarded in December 2022, fulfilling our medium term commitment in the Women’s Health Plan to commission research into endometriosis.

The Women’s Health Plan also includes a long term action to establish a Women’s Health Research Fund with the aim of closing gaps in scientific and medical knowledge in women’s health for both sex specific and non sex-specific conditions.

The National Referral Mechanism is the UK-wide framework for identifying victims of human trafficking and exploitation and ensuring they receive appropriate support. The NRM is operated by the Single Competent Authority and Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority within the Home Office.

NRM data can be accessed via the Modern Slavery: National Referral Mechanism statisticswhich contains records back to 2013.

In addition to this, police recorded crime statistics include several types of crime in relation to the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 as detailed below

• Slavery or forced labour (under sections 1 and 4 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015)
• Human organ crimes (under section 1 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015)
• Breach of Trafficking & Exploitation Order crime (under section 32 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 and
• Immoral traffic (under section 1 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and section 11 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995)

This act came into effect on 31 May 2016, with the first recorded crimes falling in the 2016-17 recording year (see Table One).

Prior to the implementation of the 2015 act, data is only available on Immoral traffic crimes recorded in Scotland (under section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and section 11 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995). These are shown in table 2.

Table 1 – Recorded crimes under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, Scotland, 2016-17 to 2021-22

Notes:

1. As the act came into effect on 31 May 2016 this is not a full recording year.

2. Although this crime pre-dates the act, some charges under the act were assigned to this crime beginning with the 2016-17 recording year.

Table 2 – Recorded crimes of Immoral traffic, Scotland, 1999-00 to 2015-16

Source: Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2021-2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

We recognise the scale and impact of non-communicable disease across Scotland and are taking a range of actions to address their impact on our health and wellbeing.

Living with overweight or obesity is linked with an increased risk of developing a range of serious health conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, liver and lung disease. We are taking wide-ranging action to support healthier choices, as set out in our 2018 Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan. This includes a challenging aim to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and significantly reduce diet related health inequalities.

As stated in our recent Programme for Government, we will introduce a Bill to restrict the promotion of less healthy food and drink as part of the 2022/23 legislative session. We will also urge the UK Government to stick with its commitments to ban junk food advertisements on TV programmes before the 9pm watershed and for similar restrictions online.

We continue to support NHS boards to improve weight management services in line with our Type 2 Diabetes Prevention, Early Detection and Intervention Framework and Public Health Scotland’s national standards. We are in year 5 of delivery of the Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Framework, which has seen the adoption of effective and evidence based treatments, across Scotland.

Alongside the Framework, our Diabetes Improvement Plan sets out our priorities to deliver safe, effective and person-centred healthcare, treatment and support to those living with diabetes. Priority 1 of the Plan is focussed the Prevention and Early Detection of Diabetes and its Complications, supporting the implementation of the Framework.

The Scottish Government has awarded the Scottish Council on Global Affairs (SCGA) grant funding of £120,295.17 for the financial year 2022-2023.

We will continue to support the SCGA as they develop throughout 2022-2023, and look forward to seeing the SCGA provide a Scotland-based, independent, and non-partisan forum for meaningful debate on international affairs.

Since the Level of Service Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) IT errors were identified three forms of review have been underway:

• Open cases review
• Risk Management Authority review
• IT review

Letters have been submitted to the Criminal Justice Committee on 3 March 2022, 12 May 2022, 28 June 2022, and 27 September 2022, providing updates on these three review elements.

The Risk Management Authority review is not looking at “failed assessments”. They are exploring impact from the known system error in relation to risk and scoring. Part of that review is an assessment of possible material impact, as it is a feature of risk assessment that much more than one IT system output goes into the risk assessment process.

With the caveat that the review work has to be led by what is found at each phase, it is currently anticipated that phase 3 of this work will conclude in November 2022 and report thereafter.

The Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 was passed by the Scottish Parliament in June of this year and received Royal Assent on 10 August.

Work is underway to implement the measures within the Act. Firework licensing, Part 2 of the Act, requires secondary legislation and the development of an appropriate licensing system as part of implementation. The licensing system will therefore not be in place until late 2023/early 2024 at the earliest.

The final Union Connectivity Review (UCR) Report was published in November 2021.

In March 2022, Transport Scotland officials had discussions with their UK Government counterparts at the Department for Transport (DfT) at which the findings of the UCR were discussed. Transport Scotland also provided an update on the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) which had been published in January 2022, in particular Recommendation 40, which relates to the A75 and A77.

Discussions have continued on the subject of possible related funding opportunities for development work on the A75 and the next scheduled meeting between officials is on 31 October.

The £20 million referred to is a provisional estimate from the Resource Spending Review for the financial year 2023-24. The costs of the Supreme Court referral are being met from the 2022-23 Government Business and Constitutional Relations budget line.